Blythe Pairs League Round 1 21/11/10

Hi folks, this weekend took us to Blythe waters for the start of our annual pairs league me & my partner Stav were hoping for a good start to the league as we won it earlier this year, the league is run over 8 match's with roughly 1 match per month until may next year. Normally the match is just split into 2 sections on Cherries pool but due to a few more pairs wanting to fish this year we decided to run the match's over 2 pools with Bridge pool being the new addition, 1 angler from each pair on each pool with points deciding the overall results 15 points down to 1 for last on the pool and 0 for a DNW. Carl the gaffer had decided to limit the the amount of pairs to 15 as he felt this about right for the pools during the winter, last year there were 11 pairs on 1 pool which was a few too many for Cherries meaning we had to put a few pegs in that were not very good so we were hoping that by using the 2 pools and taking some of the pressure off that we would catch a few more kippers. Typical that we turned 1 pair away for the league then 1 pair failed to show up so we were down to 14 pairs for the league, Bridge pool is a bit of an unknown to most of us but we were told that there were more carp present than Cherries me & Stav fished it a few weeks ago and it had not fished well then it was now ever colder. Stav went up for the draw putting himself on peg 21 on Bridge and came back with peg 14 on Cherries for me, Stav's peg as i have said is a bit of an unknown but my peg is crap i don't like this part of the pool as you cannot reach the boom with the pole and the next peg in 12 is out on a bump some 3-4m further out into the lake than you. I was not happy as with the whole lake being the section there are only 5 pegs that cannot reach the boom with the pole but peg 10 is in the bay all on it's own peg 12 i have told you about and pegs 22&23 are corner pegs, that leaves 14&16 the only pegs without a boom within pole range okay you might say so use the lead or the feeder that's okay if there are any fish in the area but the peg opposite 28 is missed out because its crap it was in last year and never threw a weight up. The next pegs to my right 16&17 are opposite 25&26 two good peg that regularly throw up good weights and to make matters worse Carl the gaffer had drawn peg 10 which 2 years ago was the best peg on the pool but last year we put 11 in so it didn't fish as it had before, this year peg 11 was out peg 8 was missed out due to there being a few arguments about them throwing in the same spot and pegs 1-7 on the disabled pegs were left out so peg 10 has got 9 spare pegs? I set up the following rigs to tackle the peg.
Rig 1, 14.5m pole line 4x14 j8-range float, 0.16 mainline to 0.12 h/l with a 18 808 hook, set just touching the deck in 5 1/2ft of water finished off with Preston 11h elastic just in-case the carp turn up.
Rig 2, the same as above but with a 20 808 hook to 0.10 h/l & double 5 elastic.
Rig 3, fished at 8m a Preston inter 9 0.30gr float 0.10 straight through to a 20 B510 hook and double 5 elastic.
I also set up my beastmaster 9-11 feeder rod for the method feeder up the boom which is around 20-22m away.
For bait i had brought 1 pint of red & white maggots, 1 pint of red & fluro pinkies, 1 bag of 1mm pellets, some 4mm expanders, half a tin of corn for the hook( team tin as me & Stav call it) and a few dead maggots for the hook.
I started the match on the method with 2 dead reds on the hook with 1mm soaked pellets on the hook which i planned to fish for the first hour while keeping an eye on what was being caught around me, i had put a few micro's on my 14.5m line & a quarter of a pot of pinkies on the 8m line sat back and got my head down awaiting my first bite. Wait for a bite i did 55mins gone before the tip dropped back and my first fish a 6oz skimmer was in the net, before i recast i went to answer a call of nature( to much tea) asking Johnny Bill who was on peg 16 how he was getting on he said 2 small carp and a skimmer i couldn't see him due to a tree in-between us. He was doing the best as far as i could see as pegs 12, 29 & 30 were not catching, after another bite-less 15mins i switched to the long pole line with a 4mm expander on with a few micro's in my tiny fruit shoot pot. I fished the long pole for around 30mins without a single bite i couldn't believe it normally you can catch a few skimmers from all the pegs on pellet, usually the better bags come from fishing the pole up to the boom as this gives you better presentation than chucking a feeder for the skimmers. I went onto my 8m pinkie line which i had been topping up from the start and had 4 small 1oz roach in 4 put-ins which was better than nothing i thought before i connected with something a bit better a 1lb skimmer, this is more like it i thought but the bites soon dried up after another couple of roach and a small skimmer so i topped up with pinkies and had another chuck on the feeder. I was now getting worried as i couldn't get a bite on anything and John was catching skimmers with a couple of big perch thrown in on the chopped worm, it was now 1/2 way through the match so i phoned Stav on the other pool to see how he was doing and he was having a few roach on the pole but no carp, Roy next to him had got a couple of carp but there was a few dry nets on his pool as well so he was in the top half on his pool. I was now left wondering what to do as apart from the odd small roach on the pinkie line i couldn't raise a bite on anything else, there were the odd carp being caught from the deep end of the pool to my right
so i felt that i would have to catch one or two as the silvers were not coming fast enough to build a decent weight. I decided to change from the method feeder to a small maggot feeder as i felt that they didn't want a pellet at all as Stav had not had a bite on it either but another 30mins went by without as much a liner, i was now needing snookers and put a single red maggot on my light rig over the top of the pellet line with 3-4 maggots as feed. I had 2 skimmers and a roach in 3 put-ins on this then nothing again for 10mins before another skimmer of 4oz, i stayed on this line until the whistle as it was the only thing i could get a bite on. The whistle sounded and i was glad after suffering a frustrating 5 hours i knew the peg was crap but JB had caught well off the next peg16, Carl on peg 10 came across saying it had fished hard he had got 4 small carp HARD he don't no the meaning of the word whats a carp i hadn't seen a sign of one all day. Carl had weighed in by the time i had packed in but his 4 SMALL carp went 27lb he said one of the carp was 15-20lb telling pork pies he is, big Gary on peg 12 had suffered the same as me with 3lb odd and my few bits went 5lb 6oz, JB had a good day with 19lb then Martin on peg 17 having 6lb odd. The pools had fished very hard but there were a few more fish caught at the deeper end of the lake Phil ( Geordie pet ) a guy i work with had 11lb odd on peg19 and losing a good fish towards the end of the match which cost him a few places, Stu on corner peg 20 had 18lb, Bash on peg 22 had 8lb then Tony on peg 23 had a great bag of silvers with 18lb. There was another 18lb, 8lb & 12lb on the end peg 32 the only other 2 on the lake that i beat were opposite and slightly to my left on pegs 29 & 30 with a 1lb odd and the other with just ounces, if you look at a map of the pool the bottom 4 weights were all in the same area so this is my excuse and i am sticking to it. Stav had feared better than me on Bridge pool with 10lb odd of all roach for 6th place on the pool, the lake had been won off peg 7 with 31lb of carp by Dave Anderson but there were a few low weights on the pool the same as Cherries two guys not breaking a pound. I know the water temperature must be dropping fast due to the frosts were having but i thought there might be a few more fish caught, at the time of writing i don't have the pairs points to share with you Stav said we were about half way so i hope to get the pairs points after the next round. I will be drawing our pegs on the next round as i have sacked Stav from his job after putting me on that peg, i should have known better after winning the fur & feather last week that i had used all my good luck up!